A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 01 eBook

[23] This seemingly trifling circumstance was matter
of great surprize and
scandal to the Mahometans,
who consider hogs as unclean animals, and
to whom pork is a forbidden
food.—­Astl.

[24] It is singular how very nearly this arrangement
resembles the supposed
modern invention of a chain
of telegraphs.—­E.

[25] Six merres make a pharasang, or Persian league,
which is equal to four
English miles, and 868 feet.
One merre is therefore equal to 1221
yards, and each post station
of ten merres is equal to 12,213 yards,
or almost seven English miles.—­Astl.

[26] Otherwise Kamgiou or Kan-chew, the Kampion or
Kainpiou of Marco Polo;
which is a city of Shen-si,
near the great wall and the desert.—­Astl.

In Forsters account of this journey,
the ambassadors arrived from the Karaul, or fortified
pass, at Natschieu, Nang-tsiew, or Naa-tsieu; after
which, they are said to have arrived at Kham-tcheou,
the Kan- chew of the text.—­E.

[27] The description given in the text of this Chinese
pagoda has much the
air of a fiction; yet we can
hardly conceive the author would venture
to report to Shah-Rokh what
must have been contradicted by his
ambassadors, if false.—­Astl.

[28] This is called Lam in the French of Thevenot,
and is the same with
the Lamb of Marco Polo.—­Astl.

[29] This is the Cara-moran or Whang-ho, which they
crossed a second time
between Shen-si and Shan-si,
where it is much larger than at Lan-chew,
the place probably alluded
to in this part of the text.—­Astl.

In the edition, by Forster,
this river is named Abi Daraan, or the
Daraan, afterwards Kara-raan;
but is obviously the Kara-moran, Whang-
ho, or Hoang-ho.—­E.

[30] This other river, certainly is the same
Kara-moran, passed again at
a different part of their
route.—­Astl.

[31] This must have been some city in the province
of Pe-che-li, or near
its borders in Shan-si; but
no such name as that of the text is to be
found in any of the maps of
China.—­Astl.

In Forsters edition, this place is named
Chien-dien-puhr, perhaps Tchin-teuen-pou, a city
at some distance to the west of the Hoan-ho river.
The route is not distinctly indicated in the text;
but seems to have been from Soutcheo, at the N.W.
extremity of Chensi, in lat. 40 deg. N. following
a S. E. direction to the Hoan-ho, somewhere about Yung-
nam, in lat. 37 deg. N. long. 104 deg.
E.; and Yung-nam may have been the fine city which
the Persians named Rosna-baad, or the Habitation of
Beauty.—­E.

[32] About seventeen or twenty-one English miles,
or nineteen miles on the
average.—­E.

[33] This is the same with the Khambalu of Polo.
One name signifies the
palace of the Khan, the other
the city of the Khan.—­Astl.